This is where I’ll be living for the rest of the week. Going to Northern Thailand (大谷地 / Arunothai) for a short mission trip. I found the picture using Google Earth. I was quite surprised I even managed to find it because it took 3 hours to get there and I wasn’t paying attention to the road, so I had no idea how I ended up in 大谷地 last year. I’m quite sure this picture is correct because I roughly remember the surrounding roads and houses, as well as the shape of the compound.

 

Regarding my previous post, please ignore it. I was just venting my frustration for a while. Now that I can think slightly more rationally now, I’ve decided to think through my options first before diving into anything. The problem now is the deformation of the tennis ball.

On another note, why is it so hazy and smelly now? It’s really very terrible. My nose isn’t liking the strange, strong smell and I can hardly see anything in the distance outside.

ARGHHHH. Frustration.

I’m so sick and tired of dropping balls onto string beds and now it looks like I have to do it again. I’ve done it at least 5000 times and the thought of doing another set of readings just makes me want to give up on my EE. You could say I’m traumatised by my experiment already.

I think I’ll give myself a break first. Go swimming/do violin practice then worry about this later. I thought I could settle everything by today before the rest of my December gets eaten up by other activities. Sigh.

The pain of editing

I finished my first draft of my EE, so after meeting my supervisor, I’m on to my second. There are so many things to change and it took me 4 days to somewhat get over the pain of changing stuff. Now, that’s just the first part because I haven’t actually finished doing what needs to be done yet. The thought of having to alter something you spent hours coming up with just.. I don’t know.. stings? Maybe it’s because of my stubbornness or unwillingness to change (both for the better and for the worse).

Ok I think I should stop procrastinating here and get the work done.

I went to watch the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s open rehearsal today. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I was part of the audience they were trying to film for a movie. They’re really very, very good. But probably too good for me to properly appreciate the goodness. While I was there, I suddenly realised that smss strings was there too. Joan and Jolene were waving frantically – I might have seen them, but I probably didn’t look hard enough. Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise and I had some time to catch up with them and some others.

I was listening to the news just now. Bangkok and South Korea seem to be (more) politically unstable now. If I don’t get held up in Bangkok next week, I might (touch wood) get bombed by North Korea the following week. And if all that happens, I can forget about my pile of work I need to complete this holiday! Just kidding.. I really hope nothing bad happens.

It’s nearing the end of the year - time to reflect on how I’ve spent this year. As I look back now, it’s been a short, yet long year. It seems to have passed by quickly, but when I think of all the things I’ve gone through this year, it seems long. Alright, enough for now.

This is one of the benches I occupied. Here, you can see a wide range of nylon fishing strings with varying diameters. I could almost open a small fishing shop.

Apart from doing my EE, I’ve spent most of the rest of the past few weeks going back to school for strings because of the concert coming up on Saturday.

It was Jean’s birthday yesterday, so nai nai, ye ye, Jerome, Jean and I went for lunch at Jack’s Place after I was done with CCA. After a heavy meal, we went bowling with Jensen at SAFRA. I think I’m very unfit. I got a muscle ache in my thighs after yesterday’s bowling, even though it felt like I hardly exercised while at that.

One more reason to exercise – Jean’s birthday cake.

I’ve been typing this post on and off the past 2 hours because I’ve been trying to write the abstract for my essay at the same time. I think I’ll end off here because I’ve already forgotten what I intended to type. Yea, my poor multi-tasking skills..

My holidays are supposed to have begun this week, but it doesn’t quite feel like a holiday yet. I just finished data collection for my EE yesterday, so now I’m busy writing out the essay. I’m almost at 3000 words. Finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel…

My EE in pictures:

 

My 2-storey window-pulley system. The mass is dangling on the handle.

My initial model which I constructed out of scraps I found in some corners of the labs.

The actual setup for the first part of my investigation.

The wooden frame – I sawed and put it together. Yes, I’m quite proud of it.. It was my first time sawing wood. As Tim put it, “murdering pieces of wood…”

The setup for the second part of my investigation. If you see the background, almost the whole lab is empty. There’s usually only a maximum of 3 people working in the lab (and it’s the same few of us) at any one time. Over the past few weeks, I slowly expanded my territory and conquered 2 whole benches.

The tennis racquet which I brought from home and cut up in school.

Life has been ok so far. I got back results last week and I’m glad I did reasonably well. In terms of my average score, I didn’t improve nor de-prove. But in terms of grade points, I increased by 1 (a good thing). This means that I evened out my scores, so the next step for me is to push everything up to a 7.

I went to the Physics lab to work on my EE this morning, since there was no school. The good news – I improved my setup and I’m moving on to my actual experiment. The not-so-good news – I’ve only managed to take 2.5 sets of readings of part 1 of 3 of my investigation. The rate of progress is practically zero. And today, when I dropped the mass outside the window, someone started pulling on it and wouldn’t let go for a few minutes. I wasn’t too annoyed, but I still wonder why people do such things.